River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1887-03-31
Bugs and Insects.

I
the big chaps who are about us by night
and by day to delude. to deceive and
defTaud. are alike entitled TO all the
anathemas hurled from the rostrun or
spoken in the harvest field.
My gray headed friends, compatriOts
and neighbors of early times, first
settlers in this fair valley, can truly
cite you at this day back to the time
when we could plant and SOW in the
virgin soil of the st. CroiX Valley and
expect, and calculate with degree of
certainty to reap "a harvest, undis-
turbed by bugs or other destroying
yermin. If we planted we had little
solicitude but that we should reap.
We could return to our beds at night
in our cabin home, however rude it
might have been, and sleep the sleep
of tired nature with the latch string
hanging in the outer door, or door
aJar, never dreading the city burglar.
But the steamboats, soon imported the
bed bugs; settlement and speculation
brought the humbugs; and the rail.
roads the big bugs. And so one after
another OF the pests that follow after,
and thrive upon patient industry came
as the years rolled on and now we have
nearly all the insects and bugs that
nfest leaf and plant and domicil of
any country; as our progenitors are of
all the world 50 with them followed
nearly all the vermin.
We have been and now are a very
busy people, and have very little time
on me icy to contribute to the hum
bugs of the age. Indeed, humbug-
ging does not thrive, imagine, in so
cold a climate rs is ours, or where all
live so near the school house. Yet old
theories will stick TO a man long after
he has emigrated.
An empty purse will seldom cause a
man to change his early political af.
iinitives, or first imbibed religious
theories: and the man from the rock
bound green mountain state or coal
and iron Penn, though farmer, will
still hold to and advocate high tariff,
never dreaming that the humbug is in
the interest Of the few as against the
great producing many; few wealthy
manufacturers against labOrers and
agriculturists; and he will pay duty
20 capital down to his last day. But
am not here to discuss the tariff, as
you feel its iron grip as well as |, and
know as much or more about 1t, quite
likely; and can grin and bear its bur
den as long as you, who advocate 1T,
have faith.
1t is about other bugs not political
or social that l propose to discuss.
Dir. Fitch asserts that America is the
land of insects, for, as compared to
Eurnna NO ara htte, tiHHan II IL aai1
that insects Outnumber in species all
other animals combined. More than
100000 have already been described
and fully as many more remain to be
characterized. The two-legged human
bugs are not enumerated in the above
figures. They will increase the num-
Der few hundred thousand.
The losses occasioned by insects in
furious to agriculture in the United
States are in the aggregate enormous
and have been vaTiOusly estimated at
from $500. 000, 900 TO $500 100000 an
nually. 1t is impossible to protect our
crops. We can only endeavor to limit
the damage and destruction.
The bug that to-day is our worst
enemy in all this northwest, and in
fact everywhere that grain is sown.
is the chinch bug, and he is the
fellow | am after. How to defeat, de-
stroy and ultimately annihilate the
scamp is the effort. the study. the con-
Germ of the present generation.
There is no galnsaying it; but as
| long as we in this valley could harvest,
on an average, twenty bushels of
wheat per acre, las we die for many
years. we prOspered and accumulated
as well as any other people engaged in
agriculture in any country. But
the bugs have multiplied to such an
extent that the light of hope is well
| nigh extnguished. and we seek rem
| edy. We must have relief from the
| bug nuisance or become pauperized.
| Mr. Hoard and Mr.. Smith say, ''quit
! + eat raising and stock our farms
with cows
If so per cent. of the farmers of Wis.
| cOnsin and Minnesota shall follow theil
advice, | predict that In less than five
years hence a wall will go up all about
| us that the cows are buggy, or worse
the matter.
The first record we have of the prev
alency of chinch bugs was in OLD
Revolutionary times, in North Carroll
ma. when it was COMPOUNDED with the
| Hessian fly. Ever since it has been {
pest in pal ticular years. Thomas Say
the great eItOmOlOgist, is said to have
been the first to name and describe il
scientifically. Charles V. Riley, the
United States entomologist, says We
may safely conclude that the chinct
bug has always existed in Missouri anC
all over the great west, but that it die
not multiply to an injurious extern
until the grains began to be cultivated
on an extensive scale. II is the opin
ion of all entomologists that one grea'
cause of their being kept thinned out
/. in former times was, probably, they
were destroyed every fall and spring
by prairie fires; and as cultivation hai
extended in consequence of the cOun
try being settled up and less prairi,
has been burned over, the greater thu
number of bugs left, and survived The
winter to start the next years brood
and so annually the number has be
come greater and greater The los
to small grain in the northern state
in the year 1871 was estimated to ex
coed $50, 900 600, and lie Barron ha
f put down for the year 1874 double tina
J sum. Prof. Riley estimated the los
in Missouri Ia winter wheat state), af
ter careful investigation. in 1877
caused by this bug, at Sl9, 200, 900
How great the aggregate loss in Wis
cOnsin or Minnesota for the years o
+ 1885 and 1886 | have no statistical in
formation. 1t may be enough to know
I that the bug has not only devUure,
the profits of whole communities il
Z many towns and counties, but nearl
! beggared the renter and new begin
ner.
In Missouri aud Illinois it is pub
lished that the bug is two brooded
and farther south often three brOoded
D | am we'll satisfied that we, the las
season. had the southern extreme an
! fed three broods; that the winte
/ SHOWS of 1885 and 1885 were favorabl
S for their survival. and the eXtremel
s hot weather in the month of Apr
, following brought out an early brood
u Suppose that there are only 2.60
+ chinch bugs remaining in the spTin
I in a certain field, and that each femal
0 of the 1000. as vegetation start:
Z raises a family of only 200, which is
: low calculation. Then-allowing tn
! | sexes to he equal in number, wherea
' in reality the females are always ia
5 more numerous than the males-th
! first or spring brood will consist G